Soft focus/blur HELP PLEASE!!

[Rebekah5280]

I'm starting to get really annoyed. I have a Nikon D600 and my go-to lens is my nifty 50mm. I use off camera flash with 1 strobe on a remote, and another 1 or two set to slave.
I don't have high-sync flashes, so my max SS is 160, and this is where I keep my shutter speed. I'd LIKE to be able to shoot wide open - 2.something when I'm shooting single subjects (mostly kids/babies/newborns), but, because I'm having focusing issues, I've been trying to stay more around 4.something+.
Keep in mind, that I DO change my camera setting and increase/decrease aperture as needed, but, I do a lot of portrait work so I want the soft creamy dreamy backgrounds. My problem is that I'm NOT getting a sharp focus.
I thought it was the lens at first, so I switched lenses, still had the problem.
So I contacted Nikon and I have a label to ship my camera off to have it checked, BUT, when I pulled out my back up D7000 to shoot today, I found that I STILL have the issue.
I've been saving my images in post by sharpening main features, but I want to shoot and have my pictures crisp and clear!
Here are a couple of images form today when I was testing my focus. I haven't done anything to the images, just cropped them in. All pictures were shot JPEG, AF-S. I spot focused on her eyes for each picture. All were shot at F4. The blue-ish background pictures were 1/160. The grey swirly pictures were 1/250 (I cropped out the clipping that occured because of my slow flashes).
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Any help/advise would be greatly appreciated on how to achieve the sharp crisp/clear images!
(I know the white balance is off and I will be editing/processing these images, but I only shot these pictures because I was trying to figure out the focus problem)

Would I solve this problem with a faster shutter speed? Should I be looking into high-sync flashes to help freeze my subjects more in order to get the sharper/crisper pictures??

 

[Braineack]

Use a longer lens. Move away from bg. Shoot smaller aps.

How are you focusing? Youre missing the face.

Sent from my HTC6435LVW using Tapatalk

 

[480sparky]

Most of them appear to be focused on the fine detail in the dress.

Did you use AutoFocus? If so, load the originals into View and see which focus points were use.

 

[manaheim]

Focus seems fine to me. Maybe not dead-on what you want to focus on, but it doesn't look like it's off... just that you missed by a hair and you're shooting too close and too wide open.

 

[Rebekah5280]

I'm spot focusing on the eyes/face. I move my little focus box to the eyes and face, use AF-S, then shoot.
These pictures are cropped in quite a bit.
Here is the sooc shot. I had flash here at 1/250 (which is why the clipping from the flash). Background was about 3 feet behind subject. I was about 5 feet from subject.

 

[TheNevadanStig]

Tripod or hand held? If hand held, you may be shifting forward or backwards after locking with AF. You could always get a focusing chart and doing that and seeing where you stand.

 

[manaheim]

And if you're shooting at F2 and relatively close to the subject, you're pretty much going to get her nose in focus and her eyes not. What's more is if you so much as experience a heartbeat , your body may shift enough to throw your focus off.

 

[480sparky]

I'm spot focusing on the eyes/face. I move my little focus box to the eyes and face, use AF-S, then shoot.
These pictures are cropped in quite a bit.
Here is the sooc shot. I had flash here at 1/250 (which is why the clipping from the flash). Background was about 3 feet behind subject. I was about 5 feet from subject.

DO you hold the shutter button halfway down while you recompose after obtaining focus?

 

[Rebekah5280]

I'm hand held. I shoot mainly toddlers, so I rarely ever pull out a tripod.
I was shooting at f4 I was about 4 feet away from my subject. I just went to my studio thought and found that I wasn't on the highest flash sync, so where I was limited to 1/160, I found out that I could go up to 1/250 with minimal clipping. if my flash is on my camera. HOWEVER, if I try to trigger my flash with my remote, it clips a little less than half the picture. Guess I'll be looking into new remotes!

 

[480sparky]

.......I was shooting at f4 I was about 4 feet away from my subject. .........

Your DOF is only 4 inches.

 

[manaheim]

4' away is pretty damned close.

 

[Rebekah5280]

4' away is pretty damned close.

Seriously? For a head shot with a 50mm?

 

[480sparky]

4' away is pretty damned close.

Seriously? For a head shot with a 50mm?

That's why focal lengths of 85mm+ are preferred for portraiture.

 

[frommrstomommy]

Maybe try out some other focus/shooting options. I'm over here playing with using center focus only and recomposing and then back button focus in af-c too.

 

[robbins.photo]

Ok, first thing - take a couple of steps back from your subject. I realize that with a 50 mm lens 4 feet might give you the composition you want on camera, but unfortunately it is making your DOF at F/4 very narrow. By taking a couple of steps back, you can increase your depth of field dramatically and then compose the photo to your liking in post processing with a slight crop. By going from a distance of 4 feet to a distance of say 7 feet your DOF at F/4 becomes almost a full foot, whereas at 4 feet as someone else mentioned your DOF is only roughly about 4 inches. This will make a huge difference.

As someone else already mentioned, if you want the background to be blurrier, move the subject further away from the background.

Not sure what all might be coming into play, so some of the following might be useful or it might not - in generally when I'm shooting portraits I set the autofocus system for single point autofocus and I put the focus point on the subjects eyes. If your looking for super, razor sharp subject try increasing your shutter speed to 1/150 or 1/200 while using the 50 mm. The results are.. well, dramatic.